Quake 4

First ever PC hands-on! First ever look at the 360 version!

A single elimination tournament is hosted on a single server. Up to 12 people can join an online tourney, and all matches happen independently of each other as the winner is instantly put into the next match. Losers have the option to just spectate. One suggestion for Raven is to let the losers continue playing in general deathmatches afterwards, but keep a picture-in-picture window so that you can still see what's happening in the championships.

The Weapons:Gauntlet: Your melee weapon is a hand-mounted buzzsaw. Sweet!

Machinegun: Tip from Law: using the zoom scope does more damage>

Shotgun: No game is complete without one of these.

Nail Gun: The slow-firing but deadly nailgun takes some getting used to -- remember to lead your targets!

Hyperblaster: A weapon returning to the series, this rapidly fires off balls of plasma. It's extremely effective in tight firefights, and was a deadly one-two punch with the Rocket Launcher that kept us jockeying for the number one and two spots in several matches.

Grenade launcher: Getting the arc right to propel grenades over a ledge or just smacking someone dead in the face -- nothing is more satisfying.

Rocket launcher: Best move of the day: rocket jumping, landing on a jump pad that kicks across the level, then, mid-flight, blowing away someone blazing toward us from an oncoming jump pad and landing square in the middle of a firefight. Only to get fragged by someone. Total chaos!

Rail Gun: It takes a very steady hand! With dead-on aim, however, this guy packs one helluva punch.

Dark Matter Gun (DMG): While not in this demo map, Law tells of the DMG that basically fires a small black hole into the middle of a map. Think of the gun that shot two gravity-sucking balls in Quake II. Or the Black Hole gun used in Planet Moon's Armed and Dangerous.

So when is the game coming? Why bother asking? You know the answer, as always, is going to be "When it's ready." But Raffel and id's Todd Hollenshead confirm that it's well into the Beta process and proceeding along. While this is in no way official, a fall 2005 release date may not be entirely out of the question.

The Xbox 360 Version:
Another nice surprise is at Quakecon was that we got a quick one-level walkthrough of Quake 4 for the Xbox 360. Now, before we get into it, we need to point out that this is still relatively early in development. Hollenshead has said that the Xbox 360 version is using all of the same assets as the PC version, but running at a slightly lower poly count.

There are stories of new software builds and actual chips to install into the machine being sent directly to developers. While nobody around the show was willing to go on record, word has it that the development of the Xbox 360 is advancing at a breakneck pace. Raffel laughs, "It looks like the hardware vendors are dealing with the kind of insane crunches software developers have been."

First thoughts/impressions: Don't show the PC version of the game running widescreen at some insanely high resolution then kick over to the Xbox 360 running at 720p. It just isn't a fair comparison. To its credit, though, the spunky new Xbox is doing a good job in these early demos with decent frame rates (there is some slowdown, but hey, this is far from final hardware for the new console). Smooth performance aside, we did find the game itself a little on the muddy side. Gamma settings be damned, the game needs to be tweaked a little so that you're not bumbling in the dark prowling the indoor corridors.

Still, you could easily mistake this for a PC build of the game. And, since Raven and id don't want to rush this out the door (it is lagging behind the PC's development) you might not be seeing this game show up in time for the Xbox 360 launch.

We can't exactly vouch for how the gamepad experience will play out (Hollenshead says it'll feel very Halo-ish control-wise) but one question we've been posing to several people is this: Since the Xbox 360 controllers will work on the PC and you've got two front mounted USB ports on the console, does this mean that you'll be able to plug in a keyboard and mouse to play Quake IV in your living room? No word yet, but it'll sure give some people one helluva an advantage on Xbox Live if it happens.